LIMA, September 13, 2017 – Mayor of Los
Angeles Eric Garcetti has praised the “radical revolution” of the IOC in
awarding the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games to Paris and LA in a single, no-losers
swoop.

Garcetti however had harsh words for
previous host city leaders whose Games and overblown budgets have damaged the
image of the International Olympic Committee.

“Don’t pretend to do things that have
nothing to do with the Olympics and put them on the Olympics budget,” Garcetti
said when asked on his message to any cities wishing to bid for Games in the
future.

“There is no Olympics since after the Games
in Sydney 2000 that have lost money on operations, it’s all infrastructure, and
that’s where overly-ambitious cities and mayors have been as responsible for
making the Games have a sometimes tougher image.

“Sometimes we get ambitious as cities, and
that’s great, cities need to have better airports and improved transportation,
but it is including that in the Olympic budget that maybe unfair to the
Olympics. The Olympics is the actual Games,” Garcetti concluded in sharp criticism
for what seems primarily aimed at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, whose joint
infrastructural and sports-related budget was recorded at over $51 billion, the
vast investment in which was largely seen as a vanity project of Russian
President Vladimir Putin.

“Don’t pretend to do things that have nothing to do with the Olympics and put them on the Olympics budget,” Garcetti said (Photo: IOC)

It was the Games in Sochi that were seen as
the prime catalyst for the need of an urgent image change within the IOC and a
clearer explanation on the prices of hosting an Olympic Games. Since Sochi, the
Rio 2016 Olympics which included a number of infrastructural investments incurred
a $1.6 billion cost overrun, while the major worry ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games
is a budget which is already six times that of what was projected when the city
was elected in 2013.

The consequences of this was an
overwhelming hesitance for local governments and citizens to back bids over
fears of astronomical budgets. It was also what spurred the IOC and Bach to
want to lock down two solid candidates and tried and tested Olympic cities like
Paris in Los Angeles in a joint allocation for the next two editions of the
Summer Games.

“This way is unusual, we invented this way,
and we are here as three winners together with Los Angeles and the IOC,” Paris
Mayor Anne Hidalgo said of the double allocation that IOC President Bach had
dubbed as a golden opportunity to ensure stability and a ‘win-win-win’ for all
sides.

Mayor Garcetti called the move a radical revolution.

“This is history. Usually you have two or
three cities crying in a corner and one glorious victor. We have had enough divisions
and enough of those going after dreams only to have them crushed.